266: We Are Not Mainstream

[gilthanan]

In a sense though, I'm happy to hear these statistics. That means that gaming companies (most obviously this year) who are targeting the casual crowd are initially going to reap large profits, but in the long term are choosing a poor business marketing plan. They need to appeal to their loyal demographic, not the casual market. I'm tired of so many games appealing to the casual demographic, dumbing down game content to remove the learning curve (Total War games for me personally have been the most irksome for this) so that people who never played a game before can grasp it without using the tutorial. Ideally then in a few years maybe we'll see them backpedaling, but that's ideally.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Becoming so casual or mainstream tends to make something more marketable, it also changes the meaning of word definitions over time as things become more known for the new meaning than the old.

I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Being mainstream may make something more marketable, but how financially viable that marketing then is does not define how mainstream the thing was to begin with.

What is more marketable tends to run on fads and trends thus why you can see more shallower FPS and action games than deep RPGs and strategy games.

Were movies/TV shows always dumbed down for the average viewer? I do not believe so I think over time they found its was more profitable to make crap and gamble on its success, then again I am a right jaded bastard. LOL

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

The question should have been "what is mainstream?" Although I'd argue that some games have been mainstream from the start (e.g. Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Pong, the Mario series and more recently your Halos, Call of Duties and GTAs), but I doubt gaming as a whole will ever reach mainstream status. Too many small indie games for the PC.

I think gaming will become film in time when they use AI to play the game so more people will buy it and frankly thats almost a better choice than having to slug through watered down titles.

 

[Space Jawa]

The question should have been "what is mainstream?" Although I'd argue that some games have been mainstream from the start (e.g. Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Pong, the Mario series and more recently your Halos, Call of Duties and GTAs), but I doubt gaming as a whole will ever reach mainstream status. Too many small indie games for the PC.

My thoughts as well (maybe not in regards to CoD or GTA, but the rest stands). Video Games as a whole may not be mainstream, but characters like Mario and titles like Tetris and Pac-Man you'd think should be pretty recognizable even beyond the standard VG community.

 

[bojac6]

Snip

Basically what Korolev said in his two posts.
I found most of this article kinda pointless and misleading. I think a lot of gamers try really hard to be counter cultural or not main stream. The thing is, we're not nerds in a basement who need to know how to rewire a circuit board in order to play a new version of Pong anymore. Big new releases get big media coverage. Sure, there are fewer people who play games than go see movies, but why are we comparing ourselves to movies? If you brought up any book on the New York Times Bestseller list at a part, how many people will be able to talk about them?

The thing is a single player game like GTA is not like a movie. It's not something you can do on a date. It's not something a group of friends will get together and do. That's why Halo and MW got so popular. Having LAN parties with Halo is a social activity. Like watching a DVD. You wouldn't ask somebody out to read a book. You ask them out to a movie. Similarly, you don't ask somebody to watch you play GTA. You ask them to play the few good split screen multiplayer games. It's about how social things are. Comparing a single player game, where you play in your free time when you're alone, to films, where you go to a new one every few weeks because you're hanging out with a group of friends and bored, just doesn't make sense.

The fact is there's a steady supply of news on the big networks about games, whether it's all positive or well informed or not. There's ads for games during the Super Bowl. Nobody gets shunned for playing games any more. Owning older consoles is cool now, go to a college dorm and notice how people flock around MarioKart 64. Girls play games now and don't run away when they find out a guy does.

Finally, I ask, is Transformer 2 considered mainstream? It did well at the box office, but nobody liked it. Is that main stream?

 

[superbatranger]

Does it really matter that the movie industry makes 10 billion dollars more yearly than the video game industry? The movie industry is practically a hundred years old, while the video game industry is roughly 40 years old. That's a 60 year difference. Yet, even though the video game industry is relatively new compared to the movie industry, the growth it has gone through has been fast, to say the least. In another 10-20 years, maybe even 5, that 10 billion dollar gap could become smaller.

There's one thing I'm curious about. Those sales figures that were mentioned in the article, what countries and/or regions were covered by them? Is it just regions like the US, Europe, and Asia? Or do they also factor in other countries, like those in the Middle East and Latin America? I wonder, because where I live games are around 2 times as expensive as their American counterparts. A 60 dollar game there costs 110-120 dollars here. If they weren't factored in, wouldn't that change the revenue numbers if they were?

 

[oktalist]

Thankyou! Finally. Way to deconstruct the "argument to flawed statistics" pattern, also known as "we has numbers, so we must be right! What do you mean, the comparison is unfounded? What do you mean, the results are skewed? We has numbers! Look, numbers!"

Journalist school should force its students to take a statistics course so they can recognise when the numerical wool is being pulled over their eyes.

 

[RevStu]

Was the fact that movies must be paid again to view it a second time compared to paying a one-time fee for a video came?
Was the fact that movies are generally ~2 hours compared to games 6-15 hour (being generous here) time frame in play?
Are sales of entire franchises (CoD, BC, Harvest Moon to get in some "casual" games on the list) accounted for?
What about entire hardware franchises (Nintendo Handhelds, Playstation brand, Xbox brand, etc...)

What on Earth does any of that have to do with the subject under discussion?

 

[Infernostrider]

id just like to add: the hobby may be expensive, but it's less expensive then blowing all your money on drinking alcohol and going out every week ^^

 

[ClanCrusher]

I don't remember exactly where I heard it, but I believe the movie industry has been the most profitable entertainment medium for a very long time now. That's not exactly any kind of new news. Games have a long ways to go before they'll be comparable to the movie industry, but I think great things will happen given time.

That being said, while I do like being part of a minority, my desire to see games become mainstream is coupled with my desire to see the industry do well. The more mainstream gaming becomes, the more profitable the industry becomes. Increased profit means heightened interest, which would eventually lead to more (and possibly better) games. We may not be as mainstream as much as people would like to believe, but I don't, in any way, think we should stop trying.

 

[fun-with-a-gun]

As it has been said, movies have to be paid for every time you go to see them in theaters (you omitted DVDs a couple of times too) so I know people who have seen avatar in 3D at least 5 times. How much does that cost per hour of entertainment? Compare that to someone who has spent multiple hundred hours on a videogame online. They get a much better cost per hour.

mainstream means how many people are using/playing/watching... a product. Based on how many people play free-to-play games, you can't just use monetary values and profits to gauge how many people are using it. STATISTICS WILL BE FLAWED. No matter who makes them, they will not be 100% accurate, EVER!

you brought up the total DVD player sales in it's lifetime. Does that include a single company's or is that all of them lumped together? does it include blu-ray and HD-DVD, which are the next generation of DVDs?

You don't include file-sharing or borrowing DVDs or games in your numbers because it is very hard to track. This means that each copy or either product could have been shared with (a realistic) 5 people. This doesn't count rentals either. (people are likely to borrow a game, because it would cost a lot more to buy it when compared to a DVD.)

My thoughts on data that can be skewed either way.

 

[bakonslayer]

Sure old people don't understand videogames. They never will. But you know what? Old people DIE! OF OLD AGE! IT HAPPENS! And once that generation dies, the only generations left will be the video-game players.

Yesterday, I found the most amazing thing. On QVC, the home shopping network, they were selling Nintendo Wiis. For a THREE HOUR block in the middle of the day. It's not really that directly relevant to the overall popularity of video games, but it was still fascinating and kept my attention for 20 minutes. It says something about how far we've come.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

On a side not here, but has anyone else noticed that "core" metal genres are derided by many other metal fans, but the opposite occurs in gaming. Especially weird with how many gamers like metal...

Not really, as the word is used in an entirely different sense - one might be a "hardcore" fan of metal, but the -core sub-genres are not to metal fans what "core" games are to gaming enthusiasts. In point of fact, appending the suffix -core to the name of your sub-genre indicates a divergence away from metal.

Why? Because "metalcore" and all the various permutations (deathcore, matchcore, etc) have that -core tacked onto their names to signify that what you're listening to is a fusion genre between some variety of metal (traditionally extreme/death metal) and hardcore punk - that's where the "-core" part comes from. And considering hardcore punk is notable primarily because it seems to consist almost entirely of screaming, there's a good reason "traditional" metal fans look down on the -core sub-genres, which is that they sound like crap.

Or at least bands from the 90s did, these days the popular metalcore outfits are generally classified as "melodic metalcore", and while they interrupt the screams with some clean vocals from time to time, the over-use of breakdowns and their tendency to adopt the affectations of the 80s glam metal scene provide other reasons to mock them. I personally don't really much care either way about their pedigree, the problem is they do not consistently provide a sound that my ears identify as "good" (and definitely not as metal).

 

[Ironic Pirate]

On a side not here, but has anyone else noticed that "core" metal genres are derided by many other metal fans, but the opposite occurs in gaming. Especially weird with how many gamers like metal...

Not really, as the word is used in an entirely different sense - one might be a "hardcore" fan of metal, but the -core sub-genres are not to metal fans what "core" games are to gaming enthusiasts. In point of fact, appending the suffix -core to the name of your sub-genre indicates a divergence away from metal.

Why? Because "metalcore" and all the various permutations (deathcore, matchcore, etc) have that -core tacked onto their names to signify that what you're listening to is a fusion genre between some variety of metal (traditionally extreme/death metal) and hardcore punk - that's where the "-core" part comes from. And considering hardcore punk is notable primarily because it seems to consist almost entirely of screaming, there's a good reason "traditional" metal fans look down on the -core sub-genres, which is that they sound like crap.

Or at least bands from the 90s did, these days the popular metalcore outfits are generally classified as "melodic metalcore", and while they interrupt the screams with some clean vocals from time to time, the over-use of breakdowns and their tendency to adopt the affectations of the 80s glam metal scene provide other reasons to mock them. I personally don't really much care either way about their pedigree, the problem is they do not consistently provide a sound that my ears identify as "good" (and definitely not as metal).

I don't mind most of them, but I dislike deathcore in particular. The "we're so awesome and brutal" aspect of death metal minus a lot of the awesome riffs.

I don't think I've ever seen an article get this off topic before. Sorry 'bout that.

 

[Jumplion]

Was the fact that movies must be paid again to view it a second time compared to paying a one-time fee for a video came?
Was the fact that movies are generally ~2 hours compared to games 6-15 hour (being generous here) time frame in play?
Are sales of entire franchises (CoD, BC, Harvest Moon to get in some "casual" games on the list) accounted for?
What about entire hardware franchises (Nintendo Handhelds, Playstation brand, Xbox brand, etc...)

What on Earth does any of that have to do with the subject under discussion?

Like I said in the post, articles like these that point out numbers for assurance can easily be skewed in either side's favor.

Many people see movies multiple times, therefore making one person's ticket number bump up to, I dunno, 3. For a video game, you only pay a onetime deal of $60 (usually) and many more people can play with you for no additional cost.

Movies play for 2 hours and you're done, but video games play for 6-15 hours at a time, so the question of you paying for the time of entertainment given to you can also be asked (last I checked about $5 for each hour of entertainment was the average people were willing to spend)

Entire franchises usually grow upon each enstallment. I doubt the original Call of Duty sold as well as CoD:MW2, so pointing out that more people play those games could show an increase in mainstreamy-ness-ess.

And hardware franchises, same deal (though he did point that out, I'll retract that)

Point is, numbers can be skewed either way. I'm not trying to downplay the article, it was a good read, and it is true that video games aren't nearly as "mainstream" as we think, but it's still more "mainstream" than many other activities/hobbies/mediums.

 

[RevStu]

Like I said in the post, articles like these that point out numbers for assurance can easily be skewed in either side's favor.

Many people see movies multiple times, therefore making one person's ticket number bump up to, I dunno, 3. For a video game, you only pay a onetime deal of $60 (usually) and many more people can play with you for no additional cost.

Something which also applies to buying a movie on DVD, of course.

Movies play for 2 hours and you're done, but video games play for 6-15 hours at a time, so the question of you paying for the time of entertainment given to you can also be asked

It can, in the same way that the question "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" can be asked. Neither question has anything whatsoever to do with the relative size of audiences, though.

Entire franchises usually grow upon each enstallment. I doubt the original Call of Duty sold as well as CoD:MW2, so pointing out that more people play those games could show an increase in mainstreamy-ness-ess.

You're just rambling nonsense now. If a sequel sells more, that's reflected in the sales, duh. And movies have sequels too.

 

[Jumplion]

Something which also applies to buying a movie on DVD, of course.

The article only cited opening nights of in-theater movies, and if you want to get into renting movies/DVDs then you can include rental vieo games sales

It can, in the same way that the question "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" can be asked. Neither question has anything whatsoever to do with the relative size of audiences, though.

Not with the size of the audience, but mainly in sales numbers. If you get more hours of entertainment in a game (6-15) and compare that to a one-time viewing of a movie (~2) don't you get more bang for your buck?

You're just rambling nonsense now. If a sequel sells more, that's reflected in the sales, duh. And movies have sequels too.

Probably, I tend to do that. But if a sequel sells more, then more people have played it, hence more people into the medium. More sequels sold equals more money, adding to the pile.

Just my train of thought, feel free to disagree, I encourage it, but try to keep it calm. I have a feeling that you're taking it just a tad to seriously on my behalf, I'm just saying what's coming to my mind.

But overall my point still stands, you can skew numbers to fit whatever you need. If I could find the source that said "60% of households in developed nations play video games" damnit I would, though god help me at finding what I need to find on the friggin' internet (It was a video, I'm tempted to say by the same guy doing Extra Credits)

 

[FloodOne]

But it is heading that way, and heading that way fast. You say the movie industry, combined with DVD sales, makes 10 Billion dollars more than the video game industry. Considering how much the movie industry makes, and how long it has been around and how entrenched in modern culture it is, I'd say that the videogames industry can feel pretty damn proud of itself, especially since most of it's growth has been relatively recent.

You're neglecting to mention the fact that a decent DVD player costs less than $100 and most DVD's hover around the $18-$22 mark.


Game consoles cost more now than they ever have, and games jumped $10/unit just a couple years ago. The inflated numbers need to be adjusted for those figures.

To put it bluntly, if video games could reach the same number of people as movies do, it would be the most lucrative entertainment medium in the world. Clearly, it's not.

OT- Great article, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

 

[wadark]

Excellent analysis. I found it particularly interesting to note that the very figures we use to prove our mainstream-ness actually illustrate the opposite.

I do take a small issue though with the final comment about being proud to be a part of something non-mainstream. I know full well, that I'm probably reading way more into it than I should be, but that sort of comment has always grated on me just a little. I suppose it reminds me of the Dragonforce "fan" who called me a fag because I didn't discover the band until Guitar Hero.

 

[Yukichin]

Well, I suppose it depends on what you define mainstream as. Even if 343 million people saw Avatar there are almost 7 billion people living on the planet. That's about 5% of the worldwide population seeing that film.

So what we're really talking about is first world mainstream. Which is rather exclusive since the vast majority of people don't live in first world countries.

I'm not really trying to be a stickler here, I know full well my gaming does not represent the population as a whole, but I would say that there aren't really any hobbies that are mainstream based on what I am reading your definition of what mainstream is. Even if you take something like the Superbowl, purportedly the most watched thing on television, just over 100 million Americans watched it. That's less than a third of our own population, yet that's considered mainstream.

I think games are still mainstream if you define mainstream more broadly as things that members of a culture are aware of and understand even if they don't personally engage in the activity.

My test of what mainstream is:

If I walk up to a random group of people on the street, and say, "I'm going to do X this weekend." If a majority of those people responded with, "X? What the hell is that?" Then I would say that X is something from the subculture.

So if I said I was going Swamp Racing this weekend, now that, that wouldn't be mainstream.

I fully agree with this. Not only do you have to take into account that people see movies multiple times, you need to think about previously-owned games, rentals, loaned games, games being played at someone's house... while I doubt that the game industry is necessarily doing /better/ than the film industry, I think it's quite nearly as prevalent. Some people don't understand why video games are popular/fun, but... if you say "I'm going to go play the newest Final Fantasy game!", people will understand that you plan to play a video game, even if they're not completely sure what Final Fantasy is. Most people would understand "I'm going to go play Mario!"... yet Super Mario Galaxy probably hasn't sold as much as, say, Avatar. Would that still not be considered mainstream?